Self-Doping Naphthalene Diimide Conjugated Polymers for Flexible Unipolar n-Type OTFTs

Pinyu Chen; Dongyang Wang; Liang Luo; Jinqiu Meng; Zhaoqiong Zhou; Xiaojuan Dai; Ye Zou; Luxi Tan; Xiangfeng Shao; Chong-An Di; Chunyang Jia; Hao-Li Zhang; Zitong Liu

doi:10.1002/adma.202300240

Self-Doping Naphthalene Diimide Conjugated Polymers for Flexible Unipolar n-Type OTFTs

Adv Mater. 2023 May;35(20):e2300240. doi: 10.1002/adma.202300240. Epub 2023 Mar 27.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Applied Organic Chemistry (SKLAOC), Key Laboratory of Special Function Materials and Structure Design, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
² Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, CAS Key Laboratory of Organic Solids, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.
³ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 401331, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Electronic Thin Films and Integrated Devices, School of Integrated Circuit Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 610054, China.

PMID: 36812459
DOI: 10.1002/adma.202300240

Abstract

The development of high-performance organic thin-film transistor (OTFT) materials is vital for flexible electronics. Numerous OTFTs are so far reported but obtaining high-performance and reliable OTFTs simultaneously for flexible electronics is still challenging. Herein, it is reported that self-doping in conjugated polymer enables high unipolar n-type charge mobility in flexible OTFTs, as well as good operational/ambient stability and bending resistance. New naphthalene diimide (NDI)-conjugated polymers PNDI2T-NM17 and PNDI2T-NM50 with different contents of self-doping groups on their side chains are designed and synthesized. The effects of self-doping on the electronic properties of resulting flexible OTFTs are investigated. The results reveal that the flexible OTFTs based on self-doped PNDI2T-NM17 exhibit unipolar n-type charge-carrier properties and good operational/ambient stability thanks to the appropriate doping level and intermolecular interactions. The charge mobility and on/off ratio are fourfold and four orders of magnitude higher than those of undoped model polymer, respectively. Overall, the proposed self-doping strategy is useful for rationally designing OTFT materials with high semiconducting performance and reliability.

Keywords: conjugated polymer; n-type organic semiconductor; naphthalene diimide; organic thin-film transistor; self-doping.

Abstract

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